Female Sexual Dysfunction

Female Sexual Dysfunction

Loss of desire, or female sexual dysfunction, affects some women at certain times of life (such as pregnancy or times of stress) but some experience it all the time. A lack of sex drive can have a range of physical or psychological causes, including heart disease, diabetes, depression, relationship problems, hormone disorders, excessive alcohol and drug use, tiredness, and previous sexual experience that has been traumatic. Sex drive can also fall if a woman’s natural testosterone levels drop; testosterone is produced in the ovaries and adrenal glands, so levels can drop if these are removed or not functioning properly.

The term female sexual dysfunction describes a person's inability to fully, healthily, and pleasurably experience some or all of the various physical states or stages the body normally goes through during sexual activity. These stages can be broadly thought of as the desire phase, the arousal phase, and the orgasm phase. It has been estimated that about 19% to 50% of women are affected by female sexual dysfunction to some degree.

female sexual dysfunction can have a physiological basis in the body (something is physically wrong), a psychological basis in the mind, or be the result of both underlying mental and physical problems. It can also be a matter of problems with technique: some women never fully experience sexual arousal and orgasm because female sexual dysfunction or their partners lack sexual knowledge. They may not understand how female sex organs respond or are stimulated, or don't use appropriate arousal techniques. In these cases, a lack of understanding of the function of the clitoris, the female sex organ producing orgasm, may be at the root of the problem of female sexual dysfunction.

female sexual dysfunction has a strong interpersonal component. A person's notion of their own sexuality is largely determined by culture, society, and personal experience. It may be intimately connected to their own or society's ideas about the appropriate or inappropriate expression of sexual behaviour. These feelings may cause anxiety because of a personal or cultural association of sexual experience and pleasure with immorality and bad behaviour. Anxiety is then expressed physically by the body in a way that prevents normal sexual function. Anxiety can do this, for example, by stopping or slowing the state of sexual excitement allowing the lubrication or moistening of the female genitalia - an important step towards beating female sexual dysfunction.

The implied parallel between female sexual dysfunction and male impotence is deceptive. The word “dysfunction” — medical parlance for anything that doesn’t work the way it should — suggests that there is an acknowledged norm of female sexual function. That norm has never been established. Unlike penile erection, which is a quantifiable physical event, a woman’s sexual response is qualitative. It embodies desire, arousal, and gratification — and it can’t be measured objectively. Without an empirical standard by which to assess female sexual dysfunction, it would seem difficult, if not impossible, to come up with criteria for female sexual dysfunction.

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